This invention relates to a device for guiding projectiles propelled by the bow string of an ordinary crossbow, and particularly an improved device for shooting slug-like projections, such as pellets or bullets.
Crossbows have been known and used for many hears for such things as hunting and personal protection. Crossbows were originally conceived to propel arrows toward a target over greater distances and with greater velocity than existing conventional bows. With the advent of firearms, it became desirable to propel other projectiles, such as slugs, ball bearings or bullets. The concept of firing such projectiles from a crossbow type launcher also became popular, as evidenced by the prior art. There are several advantages to using slug or ball-type projectiles, rather than arrows, in combination with crossbow devices. The cost of even the cheapest conventional crossbow arrow can be up to twenty or thirty times greater than for a conventional .357 slug. In addition to the reduced cost of slugs, a ball, such as a ball bearing propelled from the same crossbow as a conventional arrow of comparable weight, will travel roughly twice the distance.
Although crossbow devices that propel projectiles other than arrows are known, these devices have achieved such a result by redesigning the entire crossbow commencing with an entirely new structural configuration which better suits the various needs of slug-type pieces. These devices have generally redesigned the crossbow from the ground up, as it were. Because of this, there have been several problems with such devices. The first is that while many of these designs allow the firing of projectiles such as slugs, they do not alternatively allow the firing of conventional crossbow arrows. Even those devices that do offer dual firing capability have been designed as complete devices, rather than as an add on unit which a user can easily affix to an already existing crossbow as an attachment. The cost of purchasing another entire crossbow that has slug projectile firing capability is prohibitive to many who would otherwise find dual firing capability, in an already owned crossbow, useful.